China accused of Tibet repression

The Chinese government is misusing criminal charges to repress political, cultural, and religious expression in Tibetan communities, a human rights group has said.

09 Feb 2004 05:56 GMT

Many Tibetans resent what they see as Chinese occupation

In a report released on Monday, Human Rights Watch also accused

China of trumping up charges of bombing

against a jailed Tibetan Buddhist monk in order to

muzzle him

.

The organisation said the persecution of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, a highly-respected Tibetan lama, highlighted the ongoing strictures placed on Tibetans in China.

HRW said the case against Tenzin Delek

, given a suspended death sentence in December 2002

over a rash of bombings in a Tibetan-populated area of the

southwest, was riddled with inconsistencies and procedural

flaws.

'Forced confession'

Its report - based on nearly 150 interviews - said

the government targeted Tenzin Delek after a decade of trying

to curb his social and spiritual work.

And to convict him it had

to force a confession from the co-defendant who named him.

The group demanded the immediate release of the monk and a handful

of other Tibetans arrested in connection with his case.

"Human Rights Watch is concerned that the Chinese

government's treatment of Tenzin Delek is not an isolated

phenomenon," the report said.

Heated protests

"In spite of China's rhetoric about legal reform, Tenzin

Delek's case shows that when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese

government still does not tolerate uncontrolled political or

religious activity"

Mickey Spiegel,Human Rights Watch

"In spite of China's rhetoric about legal reform, Tenzin

Delek's case shows that when it comes to Tibet, the Chinese

government still does not tolerate uncontrolled political or

religious activity," Mickey Spiegel, a researcher in the Asia

Division of Human Rights Watch, added in a statement.

The Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment. However, China typically rejects statements by foreign human rights groups as attempts to meddle in its internal affairs, saying its citizens are dealt with according to law.

Despite heated protests from international rights groups

and diplomats, China executed Lobsang Dondrup, the other

Tibetan tried alongside Tenzin Delek, last January.

In a tape released at the time and said to have been

smuggled out of jail, Tenzin Delek protested his innocence from

his cell, where he remains today.

'Chinese occupation'

In China, a suspended death

sentence is usually commuted to life imprisonment.

Beijing has shown intermittent signs of increasing

tolerance towards the Tibet region in the past two years,

freeing several prominent activists and allowing a

series of rare visits by envoys of spiritual leader the Dalai

Lama.

But many devout Tibetans resent what they see as Chinese

occupation and interference in their religious lives since the

People's Liberation Army marched in and imposed Communist rule

in 1950.

In recent years, the Chinese government has consolidated secular control at the expense of monastic influence.